Carrol Henderson joins us on today’s Fish Schtick. He’s an Iowa Boy like me – he grew up on a farm in central Iowa where his dad took him fishing at farm ponds for sunfish and bullheads. Today he lives in St. Paul, Minnesota where he works for the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources. What he’s best known for today may be more in the world of waterfowl than in the angling world.

This time of year, just about anywhere you live, we’re starting to see winged migrations.

Carrol leads a couple of international birding trips every year, and his “Birds of Costa Rica: a field guide” comes out in January. Carrol was the guy who reintroduced Trumpeter Swans to Minnesota back in 1982. Now we have over three thousand trumpeter swans in Minnesota, and some have made their way into Manitoba and Ontario. It has been an incredible success.

So why a bird guy on the Fish Schtick? Well, we all love seeing the wildlife when we go fishing, right? That’s a big part of it. But there may be no person who better understands the risks posed to birds – waterfowl and other wildlife – by lead fishing tackle. Carrol is an angler himself so he’s not an “anti-“ he’s one of us, and he’s come armed with solutions, and some really good stories.

Carroll Henderson calls himself a “hybrid fisherman” because when he heads out in the boat, he’s got his Canon 50D digital camera with a great big lens at his side, turned on, lens cap off, and ready to photograph whatever creatures he encounters. He’s an author, educator, angler and a birder, and he’s our guest on today’s Fish Schtick.